I know I am not alone. I know and accept there are hundreds of thousands of people just like me experiencing hell in Pennsylvania right now after this horrific ice storm.

I now understand completely how victims of hurricane Sandy felt.

And yet, when it happens to you, you feel all alone. I know that sounds ridiculous and babyish, and I am grateful to God in the heavens above that the damage to our home wasn’t worse than it is.

Yet still, might I just admit that I am so terribly sick of this right now? I’m trying not to be a big baby, but part of this is just really hard. I love my home and it feels like mother nature violated it.

My neighbors and I are without power still and we feel like we are living an episode of Little House on the Prairie or re-enacting O’Pioneer. On the other hand, I am grateful I have such awesome neighbors.

One of my neighbors had a tree go through the roof.

Another neighbor had to pay a tree company to get a gigantic limb from a multi hundred foot tree removed on an emergency basis yesterday, because if it dropped (and it was hanging by a thread as it was), it would have gone right through their house in the center like a giant spear.

Those of us with storm damage are already gearing up for what we know will be ahead: contractors and service providers jacking up prices after a storm event like this where a state had declared a state of emergency. It is despicable, but is the unfortunate nature of mankind and commerce meets an emergency.

PECO had our power on for a few minutes then it went out again. What we didn’t know until we found out by accident, was that every time your power goes on and then off you have to keep reporting the outages. Which is frustrating to try to do when you have limited cell phone battery and no phone service. And after sitting on hold and suffering through multiple prompts, getting a live person at the electric company who is sitting in a warm office telling you they know “exactly how you feel” is a little hard to swallow even though they are trying to be helpful.

People are are having a hard time with the electric company’s automated outage reporting system because a lot of people found that there outages weren’t reported even though they followed all the prompts and phoned it in.

Township the municipalities and counties are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of what they are dealing with. There are trees down everywhere and even the Borough of Malvern was mostly dark yesterday.

This storm for sure will be one for the record books. I hear President Obama has declared Pennsylvania a state of emergency. I hope that helps get things put right faster. Stay warm and safe. I am also hearing reports now of people who are finding that their homes are getting burglarized when they have had to leave to seek shelter and warmth .

This storm is one that will also teach you a lot about human nature. I am grateful for my friends, family, and neighbors. I am grateful I still have a roof to put over my head where so many no longer do.

But I feel so disconnected from everyone after a multi-day power outage, it is almost a surreal feeling. When I sleep I still hear the ice crashing down on my roof and the sound of tree branches and trees falling everywhere around me. Also when I sleep I dream of hot showers and the every day pleasure of watching TV.

Hope all of you out there are doing well, and I hope that this is over soon.

If you have a power outage you have not reported, or a subsequent power outage please report it. That way the electric companies have a more accurate count of who has power and who doesn’t.

I had many friends in New Jersey and that went through weeks of horrible stuff post hurricane Sandy. In some cases, months. I now totally get what they meant when they said until you have experienced something crazy like this personally, you really don’t get it.

I hope everyone has a good day and thank you for listening.